It’s your turn! Get into the commenting action and treat us to a writing tidbit you’ve picked up recently. Tell us the tale of writing battles past, whether you fought and won or fought and learned…
Above all, the first draft of a story is meant to be an icky, gloopy mess. And when you’ve completed it, you do, indeed, have an honest-to-gobstoppers gen-yoo-ine story on your hands.
But. You still need to shape that amorphous blob of words into something approachable, let alone digestible, for anyone else. And that is where your toolbox comes in…
Last month, I spent an indeterminate, yet still large number of hours drawing trees for Julie of Julie V. Photography… The experience left me ruminating upon some of the clear parallel between my drawing craft and my writing craft. Gather ’round, my dearest inklings, and I shall share with you the wisdom the aforementioned parallel doth impart…
We of the storytelling craft often use the term “thread” when discussing the thematic elements that hold our tale together. It’s a perfect metaphor, because we do, indeed, weave those elements in and out of the plot, binding characters and events together into a unified whole. But problems arise during the weaving because we use the wrong threads…
Tweet That title might be slightly misleading. Mr. Koontz’s and Mr. Anderson’s writing is, indeed, the foundation upon which this particular article rests. But there are several additional authors whose works would make great building blocks for the ideas I’ll endeavor to convey to you today. I’ll mention some of them later. But Dean Koontz’s […]
When a friend of mine asked me what he should do about his writer’s block, I thrilled at the chance to help out a fellow writer while re-teaching myself a very needed lesson. My answer to his query went something like this…
When you write, you are negotiating a connection with your readers. You’re taking your idea, converting it into written language, and presenting it in words you want your readers to understand. If you don’t choose your words wisely, that understanding won’t take place. You won’t forge the connection…
As of this writing, I am just over halfway through The Descent
In its early stages, say, the first couple drafts, your story is rambunctious. You try to impose limits on it, but it’s mostly out of your control, skittering hither and yon and making a complete nuisance of itself…
Don’t trust your brain – your brain’s not trustworthy. It’s got too much going on in it already. It’s trying to remember to pick your kids up from school or to balance your checkbook or to call your mother. You can’t expect it to remember brilliant flashes of creativity…
